Magnificent Peaks and Stunning Beauty: My Epic Journey to Tibet from Kathmandu

When I was planning my round-the-world trip, I literally placed Tibet on the first position of the list, as it has always been a mysterious, beautiful, challenging and peaceful area of the world I wanted to discover. No doubt I probably made the best choice of my life! As a solo traveler and fully aware that I could not enter Tibet from Nepal on my own, I was contacting Tibet Vista to ensure that I would join a small-group tour including some of the greatest landscapes and most beautiful temples while enjoying the company of other travelers, but also challenging myself a bit as visiting Tibet means discovering high altitude locations.

Travel from Kathmandu to Gyirong port

Starting my trip from Nepal and just arrived in Kathmandu few days before, the local Tibet Vista agency perfectly managed to get my visa on time to cross the Chinese border few days later. I had the chance to join an amazing group of five other travelers from all around Europe to enjoy this tour and from the beginning everyone was on the same great adventurous mood, ready to get amazed by the Tibetan beauty. - Check the classic Kathmandu to Lhasa tours.

After a long, very long but exciting road-trip across the LuangTang National Park on a 4x4 with our great Nepalese driver, who showed us his village and family on the way to Syabrubesi, we were running a bit late due to the horrendous road (that probably none of us would have ever been able to drive more than two hours to be honest!), he was so nice to fix a new place to sleep overnight, before completing the trip the following morning. Saying goodbye to our Nepalese driver at the border, we were nicely welcomed by our Tibetan guide and driver on the Chinese side and drove to the first Chinese city of our trip: Kyirong.

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we then went for a short walk through the forest surrounded by snowy mountains, to discover Kepu village and the Padmasambava cave hidden among many praying flags. Having a bit of free time, I decided to walk around the town streets with one of my travel partners to visit the small temple inside the city and was impressed by all the paintings decorating its walls.

Through the mind-blowing Himalayas to the foot of the World’s summit

On the third day of our trip, we drove across many beautiful landscapes. First on the list was the Peikutso lake among snow-capped mountains and grassland.

This day was also the biggest challenge of the trip, due to the potential altitude sickness: going to the Everest Base Camp (EBC) at 5200m and sleeping there overnight. On our way to the EBC, we viewed the splendid panoramic view of Himalaya mountain range at Gyawula Pass. This challenging visit of the EBC was so worth it as we were not only able to visit the world highest Rongpuk Monastery but also had a wonderful sunny view on the Everest mountain, our guide even mentioned we were pretty lucky to get such a stunning view.

First time of my entire life I had to spend overnight at 5200m and not to lie, I probably slept one hour out of the entire night and none of my travel friends slept better than me, but we will forever remember that night and the breakfast during which we shared our short sleeping experiences!

On the road to Shigaste discovering the Tibetan spirit

Day 4 was a long drive to Shigatse, during which we had to stop on the road due to an unexpected incident involving other cars. Having few hours to wait, a nice local family was showing us her house, allowing us to play with their children, explaining how the cheese they were selling on the road was made. We were deeply immerged into the Tibetan family spirit.

We had another view of this Tibetan spirit when arrived at Shigatse by visiting Tashilunpo monastery, one of the most important monasteries in Tibet. We saw the huge statue of Jampa (future god) and our guide was explaining us the history of all the successive Pinchin Lamas while observing the gold roof of the main hall. - Find out tops things to do in Shigatse.

As lucky as we were from the start of our trip, we even had the chance to see a monks dancing performance on the big yard next to the monastery. Staying overnight in Shigatse, experiencing local restaurant surrounded by locals was so much fun, as all the waitresses were fully dedicated on serving us the tastiest momos, yak meat and delicious soups the best way possible, such a convivial atmosphere!

Heritage town, holy lake and glacier

Getting finally on our way to Lhasa, we stopped at various locations to admire all the aspects of Tibetan beauty. The first stop was the Kharola Glacier at 5030m. I was actually quite surprised that such a glacier could be observed from the roadside.

Then, we stopped on the Simila Mountain Pass to admire the turquoise color of the Manla Reservoir while the wind blew the multiple colorful praying flags, blessing all the flags givers with good luck. We could clearly feel the holy spirit of that location as fluttering praying flags surely take the blessing to the roof of the world forever.

Stopping in Gyantse, we could also feel this spiritual atmosphere when visiting the Kubum monastery. This monastery is the major town symbol with its main white-layered Stupa decorated with its crown-liked golden dome. Walking around it, I did not manage to count them all but there are apparently 108 chapels and over 100000 Buddha sculptures inside.

Last stop on the road was the beautiful Yamdrok lake. We observed again the deep turquoise water of that holy lake from the panoramic view at the Gangbala Pass. As we drove towards Lhasa, we went through more and more grassland, where we observed nomads and their yaks and sheep. It seemed an eternal peaceful trip before arriving to busy Lhasa.

At the end of the journey lies the Potala palace

One of our days in Lhasa was dedicated to visit the Potala palace and its surroundings, especially the nearby Zongjiao Lukang Park full of locals playing board games and practicing gym, and few of the main monasteries located in the suburbs.

We climbed the mountain Mabori, where the Potala Palace is located and we had another occasion to observe the pilgrims taking koras (religious circling) around the Potala Palace. We saw multiple treasures of Tibet and the holiest tomb of the Dalai Lama reincarnation. We then visited the Jokhang Temple and its holiest statues surrounded by lots of pilgrims prostrating and stretching their full body back and forth on the ground to get blessing from Buddha, which was really impressive as few of them were really young kids. Seeing how Tibetans are practicing their religion is really interesting: using praying wheels, chanting, burning natural incense and last but not least prostrating all the way of the Barkhor Street with their family.

Barkhor Street was our last stop of the day where we explored traditional shops, buildings with typical Tibetan architecture and the oldest Tibetan market that was clearly the perfect time to get some colorful souvenirs!

The sound of two hands clapping

We had a great visit of the biggest monastery in Lhasa with our guide. Indeed, sightseeing around Drepung monastery was not only getting inside the various halls (the biggest can accommodate 2000 monks at the same time) and chapels but also being permanently surrounded by monks chanting and praying, giving this location a mystical atmosphere.

We also visited the Sera monastery, its painting house to get an overview of the library of Buddhist texts and how they are made, and also saw few Mandalas made of colorful sand, showing the spiritual Buddhist art. But the highlight of this visit was the monk debate in the debating courtyard: watching monks using both body and mental languages to practice their religion and study was really astonishing.

Ending up our one-week tour, we shared a last great farewell dinner in a local restaurant and had a few extra drinks in town, of course sharing all these great memories together. Goodbyes to my travel friends luckily came with the excitement of staying around Tibet a bit more, as I wanted to explore other Tibetan beautiful landscapes.

Therefore, I got the chance to spend another day in Lhasa as the second tour I booked to Namsto lake was only starting the following day and I particularly enjoyed admiring the Yaowangshan cliffside carvings and its multiple Buddhas.

The Beauty of Namsto Lake

During this second shorter tour, I joined another group of travelers who just arrived in Lhasa and was probably the only one who was fully adapted to the altitude as I really enjoyed all the magnificent views along the way and slept very well in the shared accommodation.

Just arrived in Namsto Lake, after a bit of trekking around and few pictures later, we watched the sunset over Namsto Lake, surrounded by few yacks, and that was incredible. I will always remember the most amazing and peaceful views I’ve ever seen and the incredible silence that goes with (waking up early is really worth it in that case).

Driving back to Lhasa, I realized the chance I had to discover all these wonderful landscapes, monasteries, people and traditions part of the Tibetan culture. I was sometimes afraid about high altitude and long drives, but I only bring awesome memories back home.

Thanks a lot Tibet Vista, I had no doubt Tibet was wonderful before coming but that went by far above all my expectations. Tibet is probably the only place I visited on Earth where you can get the best combination of culture, traditions, landscapes, people and religion. I will definitely come back!